Download 2nd Assignment.cwk - Harlem Children Society

Amy Zhang
(Lecture 1)
During this lecture, we got to see what students were doing in the previous
years. Their researches were extraordinary. But just before the research presentations, Carol
Feltes, a guest from Rockefeller University spoke to us about the correct way to find sources
that are helpful and explain to us clearly what is it meant by RESEARCH. The first researcher
presented his Mercury-Oxygen Secondary Bonding experiment, this followed by an introduction
for interactive keys, obesity and Hypothalamus, improving the aerodynamics of a side channel
blower, and finally the micronucleus formation in total body irradiation.
Carol Feltes taught us that research means to learn, to answer, to develop
questions, and to gain new knowledge. The characteristics of research are methodical,
controlled, and comprehensive. One very interesting thing she said was “science is a way of
knowing; it is not limited.” And this is always true because in the world of science, there is no
limit to learning new things. We have to be comprehensive when consulting our sources. In
order to evaluate the source, check for the level of the reading, quality, how long it has been
upgraded, if it’s relevant, authority, and the completeness. Many of the sources can be found in
books, journals, databases, and reports so you would always have an abundance of information
for your specific topic. In summary, a good research requires you to seek advice, consult many
different resources, behave, and most importantly, to enjoy. This is important because
enjoying and knowing what you are doing will give you more encouragement.
The next presentation was from Ivan Schoop. His goal for his experiment was to
find the interaction of energy in varying distances between the element of mercury and o or
secondary bonding. After that, he finds the effecting vibration between o and C in covalent
bonding. He is going to use a method call Density Functional Theory. This method is used both
in physics and in chemistry to investigate the different structure in an electronic structure. To
find the density function, we apply the formula k=p (sq.)/2m+Vne+Vnn+Vxc. For his second
goal, he finds the vibration Frequency of the bonds. If the bond is springing, it will mean that
the atoms are in motion. For his result, a graph is conducted to see the relationship between
distance and Hg and o. He reached his final conclusion that the Density Functional Theory
matched his experiment results and as distance increases, the energy of secondary bonding
between Hg and o decreases, so it is an inverse relation. Why is this experiment important?
And does this fall into the field of astronomy and physics?
The next presentation was from a group of three girls. Their study was in the
Brooklyn Botanical Garden where they use interactive keys. Interactive keys help classify plant
species. They first select some plants that are going to be investigated. Then it is placed in a
herbarium where temperature is very low so that any insects on the plant would die and the
plant wouldn’t go bad. This is the place where the plant is being preserve, to study the specimen,
and to extract the plants’ DNA. The DNA would bring to result the seed index. Their goal was to
update their old form. Then they went through each species of the Rubus Genus. They used
Natureserve to copy and paste some info. The importance of this experiment was to see how
effective global warming is becoming year after year and to keep record of plants that are
extinct or are going to be extinct. Further experiments might be from different plant species.
What is the relationship between finding the species of plants and global warming?
Vicki Javier presented her research call “Obesity and the Hypothalamus.” She
knows that the hypothalamus is located in the brain that is responsible for waking and sleeping.
Her goal is to see if the Hypothalamus is responsible for obesity. The nervous system is broken
down into two branches, the central nervous system and the peripheral system. The central is
basically the spinal chord and the brain. The peripheral nervous system can be broken down
into sympathetic sys. Which is responsible for fights and the Parasympathetic sys. Which is
responsible for resting and digesting. Her research is from micas. She has a list of procedure;
first to delete gene Mash1, then apply perfusion, create DNA isolation, genotyping, etc... The
brain tissue of the mice is sliced and stained. A needle is inserted in left atriu, ending at the
atroa. Tools are used to investigate the brain issue like a microscope and a neo indicator. This
Experience allows us to see other possible functions of the hypothalamus and maybe decrease
obesity. Future investigation would be to have a cross heterozygous mice with white mice to
produce a bigger colony. If we find any evidence that the hypothalamus is responsible for
obesity, we can find something we could do to restrict obesity.
A side channel blower is an object that transfers gas contents and is usually used
in agriculture, barge, and design turbane. When the impeller rotates, the air is sucked in and
the pressure difference the blower provides pushes the air backs out. The pressure at the exit
point is much so the velocity of the air is greater. The goal of the experiment is to come up with
a design to improve the volume of air or gas moved per minute and to improve the use of
centrifugal force. Centrifugal force is a force created by the rotation of the shaft’s acceleration.
Methods are to use Pro Engineer, ANsys, CFX, and an elmo side channel pump G_200 series.
The procedures are to design a pro engine and then use Ansys CFX to analyze the design. After,
to model an elmo channel pump, change the design of the impeller, and finally use Pro engineer
to make changes. This new design would save the cost of energy and increase the to increase
the speed at which work is done.
The second to last presentation was called “Micronucleus Formation in Total
Body Irradiation or a TBI. A TBI is given to patients with cancer because it can kill cancer cells in
the body. The objective is to determine the effect of radiation induced in DNA damage in HPBL.
Equipments needed are microscopes, flasks, tubes, pipettes, freezer, etc... First step is to
collect blood from patients with no cancer, then the blood
is cultured and PHA is added. 44 hours later, cytochalsin B is added. Sample collection
#2 is collected 2-4 hours after the first and MNI were identified as round in shape. There is one
micronuclei per dose in first collection. The conclusion is that TBI induces MNI formation
increasing the dosage of radiation. This research would improve the medical treatment of
cancer patients. Doctors would take into consideration the right amount of dosage each patient
can handle and not over dosing it. Further experiments would include other method of treating
cancer and see how effective it is or how it could be improved.
The last presentation is about Nutrition and Healthy Living. This group exhibits
the availability of certain healthy foods in various neighborhoods. They see whether a certain
community is lacking health and seek improvement. They take into consideration the
demographic of an area, average income, cost of food, and the freshness of the food compare
to other communities. The nutrition group walks around a certain neighborhood and write
down the number of fast food restaurants, fitness centers, gourmet restaurants, parks, etc.
They first get some data, transform their data into graphs, and finally they analyze and
interpret the data. This project encourages many to live a healthy lifestyle and create
awareness of obesity. It would also set to improve many neighborhoods that are lacking
healthy lifestyles. A further question to investigate is to see the kinds of people who purchase
healthy food in a certain neighborhood and to compare it with the same people in the
neighborhood that are purchasing unhealthy food. We would then come up with some
reasoning for why unhealthy foods are chosen and create a better method to change the way
foods are being chosen. Why are some healthy foods like Whole foods located in some places
while not in others?
(Lecture 2)
The lecture started off with code of ethics and conducts concerning all students. One of
the most important one was to establish a good relationship with our mentors. Cell phones are a
big no and if you cannot come of any meetings, always call maybe 2 days before. There is
absolutely no food or drink in the Caspary auditorium. Plagiarism can easily be detected and
don’t even try. If you try and get caught, you will be expelled from HCS. Always treat you
mentors with respect and maybe say yes maim or yes sir.
The first presentation was about the level of enthusiasm between females and males for
robots. I thought this project was very special because it brought out some of the difference
between male and female. The presenter, Princess Smith surveyed 16 girls and 16 boys, which
were all 6th graders. These children were given a survey with 12 questions that are all close end
questions. In order to keep some variables constant, the students were all low-middle class, age
10-11, and all grades 6 from the same school. Survey questions are like “Are you excited? Have
you ever thought about building one? Do you like robots?” Each question deals with a certain
aspect. For example, if a girl were to answer no on “Have you thought of building one?” we could
most likely say that girls are not that interested in building things. So this question would deal
with interests. There were 100% who checked yes for question #1, which was “Do you like
robots?”50% of boys wanted people to tell them how to build one and what to do. 20% of the
girls wanted people to tell then what to do. 100% of the boys liked robot and 83% of the girls like
robot. She then assigns the students into groups’ of 2-4. She observed that the girl took charge
and were always eager to help. The boys are having small conversations and not getting
involved. Slowly the girls become bored and started not to come. She then have the survey
versus reality and saw that in the survey, the boys were diligent and enthusiastic, but in reality,
they were not after her observations in the groups. Her conclusion would be that the enthusiasm
between girls and boys should not be based on robots. Her resolution is to find a way so that
both genders can spark each other’s interest. This topic is very important to these 6th graders
because if they have an interest in robots, it is a right time to start to explore it. Many of the
students never got a chance to experience with robots so they don’t know how they feel about it.
Is there another kind of robot that would change the result of this conclusion? Like a robot that
does someone’s homework? Educating kids about robots will allow them to see if they really like
robotics, if they do they could continue to explore robots and will lead them to engineering when
they grow up. I was never exposed to building or even touching a robot, and I have no
knowledge of robots at all.
Right after this presentation, many college students told about their experience
either getting into a college or how it is in college. There were a lot of tips on how to get a
scholarship and how to build a relationship with your professors. These tips were very useful and
I am grateful to have the students talk about it.
The next presentation was about the disease ataxia Telangiectasia. This disease
causes small blood vessels to appear on certain parts of your body. The first word of this disease
means blood vessels and the second word means blood vessels. This disease weakens the
immune systems and can lead to a higher chance of cancer. The symptoms first appear during a
young age and can include slurred speech and lack of stability. AT is an inherited disease caused
by the ATM gene located in Chromosome 11. This disease is pretty rare but people have to get
informed about this so that if they see any of these symptoms, they can get tested early. A
further research would be to work with scientist to find up with some treatment that would help
reduce some of the veins. I have never heard of this disease before so I learned a whole new
disease today. Spreading the word about ataxia Telangiectasia will lead to further research and
future cures.
Sithi Montaz presented her presentation call “Testing New Miniature Air Pollution
Monitors. She tried to find a better model of a Air monitor because the old ones are loud and
bulky. The air sampling the monitors take in will find causes for many diseases and help to
promote a cleaner environment. The new monitors are small, easy to handle, and work on 48 hr.
and/or longer. This experiment used sampler UI software and Google Map/Arc Map. When she
walked around a small area, she realized that one of the programs did not give the right
directions. She was done testing with the UPS units and she sent in the problems to the
company. This project is overall significant because if we see the problems in either one of these
programs, we could correct it before the mistake continues. I think a further research would be
to test each program closely to see which one is making the mistake.
Wayne Chan developed dynamic tactile interfaces that would help enable visually
impaired and blind people to have easier access to usual information. He has to first make a base
and the curing should be 10% of the base. There has to be an electric field. First, he adds charges
to the PDMS that is an organic polymer and the aluminum foil will act like an electrical plate. Test
1 and Test2 were clear materials but had a low transparency due to the milling tracks left on the
Teflon block surface. Test 3 had a basic cut of a foil and had tape on the edge of the side of the
block. Test 3 was unsuccessful. Test4 had a secured electrical plates and this test was successful.
Test 5 was with a mentor and this test had a top plate. Test5 was unsuccessful because of the
bubble transformation. He reached his conclusion that Test 4 would be a good model. He would
repeat Step 4 again in the future for consistency. I think he could have also try test 5 again
because without the bubble transformation, it might also work. This project is important because
if there were a successful design, it would help the visually impaired or blind people to have
access of much information.
Later on, Sheri Huang presented her work on Solar Power Harvesting System for
Autonomous Vehicles. The autonomous vehicles are driverless cars that have a built in computer
control. Her objective was to create a solar panel so the energy only relied on sunlight. The old
model used up many batteries and those batteries die out very fact. Their problem was that
some one the materials for the solar panel are very expensive. Her first step is to measure the
dimensions of the vehicle. Then she would research the potential of each of the solar panels.
The function F(x)=0.4(dstandard-D)-0.4p)+0.8(pmax) is used while testing each of the panels. Her
choice was choice 10, which is the uni-Pac 30 that cast $730. In the future, she would do more
research on solar panels and test out more. Next time, instead of testing out solar panels, she
can work to create a longer lasting battery. Why not stick to the old gasoline type?
I think the next presentation is very unique. It is called “Bringing Imagination to
Life.” A porray is a computer program that allows a person to generate 3d images on your
computer. The space has a grid with an x, y, and z-axis. This program allows imaginations to run
wild. Before this presentation, I had no idea that a program like this exists. This would help
spread imagination and would allow yourself to create anything you imagine on your mind.
There wasn’t any specific experiment but in the future, this group could create their own artistic
program for children.
The next presentation was titled “Advanced Conformational Analysis Molecular
Mechanics v. ab initio. A CADPR is an organic molecule rings and chains that regulate many
cellular processes. There is both the North and South confirmations like a magnet and the
stronger the bond, the shorter it is. The goal was to investigate the effect of charges on
conformation. 2 molecules has to be edited from the database, then the energy is calculated
using AB initio 3.21G. Amber 99 molecular Mechanics is added and 20 conformations are built.
The ribose ring and HH angles are extracted; finally the energy is plotted as function of phase
angle. The result came out to be more of a stable conformation. This would help cure heart
attacks. A future experiment would be to test more complicated molecules. I didn’t quite
understand this presentation and what was the significance of the result?
Melina Roopram presented her work in a cancer center library. She got
experience using databases and journals. The purpose was to show techniques needed to
research and to get more aware of false info. Some of the databases are Pubmed, Scopus,
refworks and emabase. When looking for information, look for who wrote it, the quality, check
for updates, and beware of many bias info, who funds for the site?, and copyrights. She learned
how to make searches in journals, databases, books, etc. She found 3 web sites that were fraud
and contained false info. In the future, she could give examples of web sites that are fraud or
have an example and show us all the things she was explaining. This project gets people to be
aware of all the text they’re reading in the Internet and teach them how to get better facts they
need. Can we maybe steal one sentence out of Wikipedia and make it our own words?
The 2009 HCS Nutrition and Healthy Living Project had 4 of the members present
one of their first assignments which were to write about the demographics around their area,
types of people around their community, food available, etc. This project will set out to improve
the availability of healthy foods in low-income area.
The goal of the next project was to design and construct an autonomous device at
the nano-scale that is effective in seeing the inner part of the body. The title of this presentation
is “The Biocybernetics Initiative” by Farhan Renman. Nanotechnology is the study of building the
electronic circuits in nanos and this is important in this project because we need something very
small so it could go safely into the body. She created a camera pill on a mini scale that Mobil
through the human GI tract and to have the ability to collect data. The pill demands certain
supply energy and this makes the design harder to perfect. The benefits of having a perfect
design can diagnose patients better with Cellac Disease, Benigh and Malignant Tumor, Vascular
disorder, learn about Human physiology, and comfortable than a colonoscopy. I think she could
try to discover if the smoothness of the pill will speed the pill through the body.
Lisa Ho presented the next presentation, “Are You getting sleeping?” Her purpose
of this experiment was to see how sleep deprivation affect a student’s affections. She had a
survey for 11th graders in Brooklyn Tech High School. She distributed well over 400 surveys and
used excel to analyze her data. Her results showed her that the less hour a person sleep, the
lower the chance of the person dosing off. This was not what I had expected. I thought that the
less hours of sleep a person has, the higher the chance of dozing off. The body cannot adapt to
quick changes in sleeping hours. If you were to sleep 4 hours for one day but 8 hours the next
day, it would not be healthy for your body. Her hypothesis was wrong because she expected the
result to be what I expected to be. Will students in different grade level produce the same
result? I think that different grade level will have a different result. That should be very
interesting.
The second to last presentation was about bed bugs! And I thought this was the
most fascination topic. Bed bugs are part of an insect family and are attracted to human’s high
body temperature. They tend to avoid heat and feed at night when the lights are out. This
problem is increasing worldwide because of temperature changes, immigrants, increase in
population, and many types of furniture. Bed bugs do not have to eat for a year and if you don’t
see them anymore does not mean they’re gone. This fact is pretty scary because there use to be
some at my home and now they seem gone. Well, I hope they’re gone. An adult can lay up to 50
eggs! The presenters gave many Do’s and don’t and I thought those were really useful. This
group did a fabulous job at presenting their work because they gave an insight to what their
mentor told a patient to do. This spread of information will allow people to gain more knowledge
of what could happen and what to do. Do those do-it-yourself chemical spraying really work?
The last presentation was by Shantae Fyffe and Raykia Koroma called “Growth of
Yeast Biofilms.” Saccharomyces Cerevisiae is a species of yeast cells that is commonly known as
Bakers Yeast. CandidaAlbicans is a fungus that causes yeast infections. Biofilm is a structured
community of microorganisms like slimy and shiny. The question they’re trying to find an answer
to is whether AlS5 change the way yeast grows. Their procedure has various steps. The first step
is to have 4 flasks of YPA, CSM, URA, and CSM complete. The second step is to sterilize for 25
minutes in autoclave. Next, pour to petri dishes so that each could cool, seal the dishes and
store, have 5250ml flask of YDA, put into shaker to mix... and the procedure goes on until the
final dishes are put into the freezer. The result was that AlS5 did not have any affect on the way
yeast grows. A further research would be to test various things to see how it has an affect on the
speed of which yeast grows.
(Lecture 3)
There were a lot of outstanding people during this week’s lecture. We had many
professors, scientists, and even someone who works in Governor Paterson’s office come to watch
and give a presentation. Dr.Sat gave a very thorough description of Dr.Darnell who studies new
approaches to cure cancer at Rockefeller University. He has won many awards throughout his
career and researches. The main idea in his presentation is “Keep focus on the big picture.” Ask
yourself what is it your desire to find in your research and what it is you want to discover? There
are many clinical problems that it conquered by undiscovered science. A deadly disease near the
mid 1900 caused 1 out of 5 child died before 12 months in the U.S. The cause was a bacterial
pneumonia in the body. A 1928 scholar, Fleming figured out that it was penicillin. He had a Petri
dish with one side having a mold but no bacteria around it and the other side, filled with bacteria.
He made a new discovery of DNA cells and found that transformation of nonpathogenic to
pathogenic pneumococcal by DNA is from heat killed pathogenic pneumococcal. Next, we move
on to cancer-a hidden angle. Cancer is caused when genes in cells become damaged and the cells
multiply without control. These damage genes may tell the cell to divide abnormally and many
genes thus are damaged leading to cancer cells invading the body. There is hope if the cancer cell
has not yet spread across the body. The new hope will count on our immune system to get rid of
the unwanted cells. Dr.Darnell referred to one have Sir Thomas and William Burnet hypothesis as
“possible that tumor cells may develop… new antigenic potentialities to provoke an effective
immunological reaction with regression of the tumor and no clinical hint exist.” We are going to
look at a particular disorder call the Paraneoplatic Neurologic Disorder. The immune system
recognizes the tumor and attacks the tumor but what it does is attack the own body. The tumor
starts to take over the neuron cells and the immune can feel. The attack of the immune system
cause auto immune Brain Disease when the brain cannot function normally and has no control.
Blood samples can test whether a patient have cancer or not. A certain chart takes the sample
and grids it on; the highest-level mean that there is no cancer and different parts in the bottom
stands for different kinds of cancer. Killer T cells are an important part of the immune system
because they kill infected cells within the body. The killer T cells recognize what proteins are
inside each cell and if they see any of the cancer cells invading, they would kill the cancer cells.
The killer T cells have to be activated in your lymph nodes first before they can start to work. The
tumor cells would commit suicide if the Killer T cells recognize them and attacks them. The
tumor cell would swell around the perimeter. To conclude the new method, we take the sample
of a patient’s blood, Isolate the dentritic cell and grow it, feed the tumor cells and have them
commit suicide, and inject to cell. This method cannot guarantee to cure but it isn’t harmful to
the body. The injected place might swell after numerous injections are taken. People like him
are working really hard to find a cure for cancer and save many of lives and there are times when
their new methods are unsuccessful but when there are so many have them, there will someday
be an alternative cure for cancer.
The next presentation was titled “Advanced Conformational Analysis Molecular
Mechanics v. ab initio. A CADPR is an organic molecule rings and chains that regulate many
cellular processes. There is both the North and South confirmations like a magnet and the
stronger the bond, the shorter it is. The goal was to investigate the effect of charges on
conformation and energy. 2 molecules has to be edited from the database, then the energy is
calculated using AB initio 3.21G. Amber 99 molecular Mechanics is added and 20 conformations
are built. The ribose ring and HH angles are extracted; finally the energy is plotted as function of
phase angle. The result came out to be that F3’’ddA may prefer gamma minus. This would help
cure heart attacks. A future experiment would be to test more complicated molecules. What is
ab-initio anyways? And does this topic relate to Molecular Biology?
A representative from Governor Paterson’s office had a big impression on the work HCS
has done for the students. We have to invest more in education and science because New York
has fallen behind in education and most of all in science. The most important part for him to do
is to tell Governor Paterson what this program is all about and encourage him to support and
fund for this program. He really wants us to study hard in school and this would help you later
on.
Civil Rights were the next topic and we saw a movie called the “Iron Ladies” that showed
vividly the depressions of Liberia. One of the biggest problems in Liberia is maternal death. This
is caused by lack of money the family face and finding a blood donor. There are not a lot of
professionals for anything around there because they find better opportunities somewhere else.
Once their out, they do not want to come back. This country suffers a civil war within them.
Almost everyone owned guns and weapons and violence could happen any minute on the street.
Slatta Johnson, a journalist in Liberia reports; Liberia had their first democratic election and a
woman named Ellen Sirleaf became a candidate. She convinced people that she is the one that
would change all this violence. They claimed themselves to be one of U.S. nations because they
looked up to America. Their flags and their government were similar to ours. Ellen Sirleaf had a
success in convincing she had the ability to be president and so she became the 23 rd president of
Liberia. She was also the first women president Liberia ever had. At this point, 90% of Liberia
were unemployed and there were no running water or electricity. Her first job was to clear the
market place and organize it so it wouldn’t be as hectic. The residents fired at the government
and did not do what was told. The president and her cabinets had a long meeting for this issue.
She knows that there is still a long way to go and it won’t be so easy. This is important for all of
Americans to see because we have to know that we are very lucky to be here in a country that is
so peaceful compared to Liberia.
The first presentation after lunch break was titled “Cloning of Recombinant
Expression Vectors.” The objective of this experiment is to produce HN cells that express
cytokines in order to learn more about their effects on T-cells in the setting of tumors. Cytokines
are important because they help T-cells to eradicate cancer cells better. The procedure is to use
gel Purification to get which piece of DNA cell they want. Then heat the DNA and separate the
bands using PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction). The band that was desired was then cut and the
DNA was extracted from the agarose gel. The knock out mice had no effects of the injected Tcells because their immune system is weak. This experiment creates starting points that might
lead scientists into bigger discoveries. What would happen if they injected the T-cells into other
animals?
The next presentation was called “Random motility Analysis in ABI-1 knockout.” The
purpose of this was to learn the fact of what protein ABI-1 could do. What is cell motility? Cell
motility describes the methods that single-celled organisms use to both move in their
environments and move things internally within the cell. It was very hard to measure the protein
and it had to be traced several times on a small scale. Morkous Hanna reached her conclusion
that impaired; lower movement rates of ABI-1 deprived cells, which is directly related to
observations made a difference.
Cystic Fibrosis is a hereditary disorder characterized by lung congestion and infection.
Cystic Fibrosis causes early death and is caused by mutation in the CFTR gene, which is a member
of ABC. Diagnoses of this disorder could be from screening, samples from saliva, blood spots, and
solid tissues. The severity is base on the amount of mutation in the CFTR gene. The hypothesis is
that cystic Fibrosis can change the structure of protein. The conclusion was reached that cystic
fibrosis can be caused by a mutation in the CFTR protein. But why is it that way? She didn’t
explain how she reached her conclusion.
“Imprints” was the next presentation by Anne El-Shafei and Jose Murickan. The FBI uses a
large fingerprint database call AFIS. Every fingerprint is unique and can easily identify suspects.
Fingerprints are formed one hundred days after conception. When your fingers press on to
something, there is oil being left on the surface. Usually some chemical or powder could make it
more visible. There are 3 types of fingerprint found: UV light, powder, and strain w/ iodine.
There is also a do it at home project where you can try to find your own fingerprint on a surface
like a real investigator do. Footprints and shoeprints can also identify suspects. The length of
ones foot is about 1/15 times the height of the suspect. Footprints can also tell the type of shoes
the suspect was wearing, where they were, and how hard they were stepping on each foot,
especially in Texas soil. The footprints also describe the walking pattern of the suspect. In the FBi
database, do they have a copy of everyone living in the universe fingerprints? If so, how? This
topic teaches the audience more about what forensic science is all about.
The final presentation of the day was from Chanel Ligon presenting one of myth busters’
topic on Cryptic DNA analysis. Many people around the world claim legends like Big Foot and
cryptic exist. But do they really exist or not? These legends are thought to be shy creatures and
are still living in one of the vast wilds where mankind has not found. One of the methods is to
extract DNA and amplify DNA found in the tissue, blood, hair, and flesh. But where are we going
to find this? There was an unique experiment that one scientist did, that if successful would
answer the big question of whether these legends exist. Food is put out on a big dish with glass
in the center and this dish was placed in one of the wilds. When the scientist went back to the
plate, bloodstains were found. But the bloodstains did not come from a legend, but from a
German man! This experiment just makes the question seem farther and farther away. The
question to whether these legends exist still remains the ultimate question scientist or even
regular people want to find out today.
(Lecture 4)
Professor Todd Disotell is an anthropologist in NYU. He showed up on PBS, Daily
News, New York Times, and many more in the media. He got his PHD in Harvard University. His
journey becoming an outstanding anthropologist wasn’t easy at all. His earlier projects were to
look at the human evolution and see how it all started. At first, genome of chimpanzees and
monkey are sequenced using a computer system. If any of the genes order is different in a
chimpanzees’ to ours, this computer system will mark it red and it would be very easy to see.
From that gene, Professor Todd can investigate how closely related we are to these chimps and
what have caused this change. Studying nature can help a lot because if you study the changes in
appearance, in behavior, or in habits, we can see how evolution dealt with changes in the past.
Comparison in monkeys and human genome will allow people to learn more about their body or
just how they behave. Certain gene can be affected more by a virus than others and if we find
that gene and try to control their undesirable task, we can improve many health problems that are
killing million of Americans. Poop in chimpanzees, amps, or any other types of animals will give
scientist the animals’ DNA. This would be a lot easier than going right in front of the animal and
extract some blood from them. In our genome, there are ancient viruses. One of Professor
Disotell’s student visited a small town in Africa where he passed a little boy selling a dad monkey
he’s dead shot. This monkey was tested and there was SIV in the monkey. SIV in the human body
can also be called HIV. This HIV virus has crossed to each generation for hundreds of years and
has reached to the human species. Many of the monkey species are immune to this virus but only
one subspecies still get affected. One of his future studies would be to study malaria and where
this parasite came from. In order to study anthropology, studying the latest in molecular biology
and bioinformatics and lead to a whole new idea in the study of evolution. His conclusion- one
branch of science is never independent of others. This is very important to keep in hand because
when you go to college to study a major, you have to get ready to look at more than one branch
and not just the one you choose.
The next presentation was by a student of Professor Disotell. Her topic is analyzing
Mitochondrial DNA in new world monkeys. Mitochondrial DNA, also called mtDNA are obtained
in a circular genome that can be found in a bacteria that was past across for many generations.
The proteins in mtDNA are thought by scientist to have been transferred to the human eukaryotic
nucleus during evolution. The goal was to find the region of mtDNA with the most variation
between the human and the monkey species. This experiment would allow the scientist to get
familiar with using Python script to create programs that compare base pairs and add up
differences in the genome. Studying the mitochondrial DNA in the New world Monkey can lead
scientist into new understanding of the function of Mitochondrial in the eukaryotic cell and can
forward us into new evolution findings. This project did not give specific conclusions and was not
really an experiment but gave us a brief introduction to how scientist us information available to
them to compare and contrast humans and the monkey species in order to get better
understanding of human evolution. I know that scientists are still finding traces of our closest
ancestors, but what is the significance? Maybe it would help analyze some health problems like
HIV but other than that, I can’t see any other helpful reasons.
The presentation moved on from monkeys to plants. This next one dealt with
sexual and asexual reproduction in plants. Sexual reproduction has to do with an egg and a
sperm. Fertilization occurs when both the egg and sperm unite. The seeds in plants are caused
by repeated cell division in the embryo. Sexual reproduction takes features from both plant
parents, however, asexual reproduction does not. Asexual reproduction does not require 2
parents. Normally in asexual reproduction, an individual plants can produce off springs by
budding, stems, or runners depending on which kind of plant. But in this presentation, Katherine
Chan introduced me to somatic cell that develops organism. Somatic cells form the body of an
organism. It can be any type of cell in the body except the sperm and egg. The nucleus of this
somatic cell contains all the DNA and information. But how does the somatic cell create an exact
copy of an offspring to its parent? It will involve what is called Somatic cell nucleus transfer.
Scientist removed the nucleus of the somatic cell and injected to the egg cell. Chemicals are
added and the egg cell acted like a fertilized cell. The egg became an embryo and got implanted.
Plant cloning is much easier than animal cloning because the body system of animals are way
more complex than plants and they move which makes it even harder to try to extract some DNA
from them. Cloning of animal has never been successfully attempted. During their lab, they take
a sample, cloned their own plants, and stored them in a cold environment, although I don’t
understand how they managed to extract DNA from the somatic cell of the plants. They didn’t
have a result yet but there would be 2 possibilities for the result, one would be that cloning is
successful and that new plants would grow, two would be their cloning failed and the plants
would look dead. One of their future experiments would be to finish their cloning and then to
clone other types of plants and see the difference, if there is. There are other techniques to
clone plants asexually that are easier without Somatic Cell nucleus transfer. Will the other
techniques make a difference and why not use the easier technique?
Micro-bubbles are next. Micro bubbles are small bubbles that are 0.00001m in
size and can hold oxygen, drugs, and others for patients. The purpose in creating the micro
bubbles are to deliver chemicals to specific areas targeted and popped by ultrasound. This
technique would make it easier to deliver oxygen or drugs to a specific area of the body and
would make it more efficient. It can be used to treat cancer, lung failure, and other disorders.
The bubbles can bring oxygen to the lungs faster than CPR or any other method to deliver air. I
am not exactly sure how it would help cure cancer but I interpret it this way: The oxygen bubbles
will deliver some laser component that will kill an unwanted cancer cell. Once the bubble has
reached a targeted place, ultrasound would then be released inside the body to pop the bubble
and release what is held inside. The combination of lipid, which is a kind of hydrophobic
containing, fats, waxes, oils, etc. and oxygen in a tank can produce micro bubbles. The goal of
Givi’s and Xavier’s experiment was to create stable bubbles in which they would last longer than
the original ones. The original bubbles would only last 3-5 days, which is a problem if the bubbles
should last 6 hours. If the bubbles were to pop faster than wanted, the chemical the bubble hold
would be release into the wrong place causing danger. They would place a set of bubbles in
room temperature and another set in the refrigerator. The result came out to be that the
refrigerated bubbles are more stable and can last longer. Another one of their hypothesis is that
rotating the bubbles will prevent bubble coalescence, meaning that it would prevent the bubbles
from getting bigger. But their hypothesis was wrong because the size kept increasing when it was
rotated. The more rotation, the more kinetic energy, the more instable the bubbles are. In the
future, the group will come up with another lipid formula. Maybe there are other ways to create
even stable bubbles but I have no idea yet on how to do so.
We had a Gates Millennium Scholar talk to us and introduce to us about this
scholarship wonderful scholarship. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded it, which was
over one million dollars. This foundation seeks minorities who have a splendid mind but needs
some financial help and often partner up with other smaller minorities activism group to further
their task into helping minority kids reach their dream. The benefits of becoming a Gates
Millennium scholar is not only the money, but they offer ambassador programs, have leadership
conferences, Mentoring, GMS circle where you can meet other scholars, and an academic
empowerment service. The people will always support you no matter where you go. But in order
to be eligible, you have to meet the federal Pell Grant criteria, a certain average, being in a
minority group, family income, etc. Applications can be found on www.gmsp.org. There are 3
applications that has to be filled out, nominee form, nominator form, and recommender form.
Either a digital copy or a hard copy has to be submitted. The person that done this presentation
told us to send in both copy so that if one does not reach them, there is a back up.
What is happiness? Happiness to students mean “life and people, having love,
smiling everyday.” You can see emotion changes in your brain when you’re happy. Social science
impacts happiness in many, many ways. Everyday we deal with people and the economy and it
does not always turn out the way we want it to be. A word from a person or a new deal for the
economy can easily disrupt the human mind. Happiness can just be defined in millions of ways.
But in this presentation, we will only concentrate on 2 ways, Happiness defined by philosophers
and by religion. An ancient western philosopher, Plato says that happiness depends on character
and wisdom and that what is considered good for men is all of the ordinary plus happiness.
William James, an American physiologist and philosopher believed happiness to be something
dealing with a pleasure to do what your doing. Ana recommended everyone to read the book
“Snow” by Orhan Pamuk, a Nobel Prize winner. This book deals with many aspect of happiness,
one of which says “true happiness could only come from the one who sacrifices his own life for
others.” What is happiness today in science? According to Dr. Martin Seligman and Sonja
Lyblbomirsky, 50% of our happiness comes from genetics, 10% on looks, and 40% base on you.
The happinest people alive are more grateful, more forgiving, and are less likely to dwell on little
issues. But how do some people become more happier than other people in the first place? Is it
all in your faith?
An abnormal nerve cell structure protein causes Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD).
It can also be called Pick’s disease. Symptoms of this disorder include a change in behavior;
patients can stay in bed all day or stop taking care of themselves, and a personality change. The
brain of the FTD patient will shrink. Their memory starts to fade and their speech becomes
broken down. The cause is a mutation in several of the genes, mostly involving tau gene. This
group’s mentor wasn’t sure if there was a certain treatment for the syndrome. They went online
to check but websites were contradicting each other. 7 million of Americans may be connected
to this syndrome and those are usually 40-65 in age. FTD has an equal chance in striking both
female and male. What makes the brain shrink when having this syndrome? They did not really
explained how. Further on, the group compared FTD to Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Not all the
time is AD linked to genetics; it can be caused by head injuries. Both disease causes the
development of neurofibrally tangles and disrupt the language, behavior, speech, and memory of
patients. Also both FTD and AD are characterized by atrophy of the brain. There are still no
treatments for AD but there are some drugs to prevent some of the symptoms. There are three
types of FTD, one called Behavioral Variant FTD that is responsible for abnormal protein inside
nerve cells in the damaged area. The second one is called Semantic dementia, which is
responsible for the patient having difficult with language, substituting many words with
something like “thingy,” and also lose concept of words. The final type is Progressive nonfluent
aphasia, which controls slurred speech and breathiness.
The next presentation was by a professional wireless developer named Zoussmam.
An Access Point or a Base station manages the central station for the wireless network.
Requirement for wireless access are quality of service, fairness, and energy efficiency. The set of
standards for wireless Local Area Networks define medium access control and physical layer. The
most common network is 802.11g. During an Ad Hoc Mode, the stations communicate with one
another but are not connected to a larger platform. When there are 2 networks wishing to
transmit a data, the carrier will sense the medium and can transmit from there. A station that
heard the data of the ark, knows the time remaining until the medium will become available will
not try to transmit so there would be a collision avoidance. A big problem is a hidden node
problem that a station does not hear but can interfere with its transmissions. There is what is
called “time dived between masters and slaves.” The masters would send a file or data, and the
slave found does all the other work; their main task is to avoid interruption. Several Pico nets
may coexist in the same coverage area in a multichip Topology. In a mobile Ad-Hoc network,
there is no need for fixed infrastructure. The main applications are for military, disaster recovery,
and public safety. Wireless Sensor Networks work in random locations and is applicable for
weather signals. What can cause interference are broadcast nature of the channel and wireless
channels are prone to errors. A transmission is successful if the other transmissions do not take
place at the same time. A new model of a mobile network is small and flexible and can harvest
their own energy. This presentation was not easy to comprehend on and it was very hard to
follow along.
What is the affection of protein 4.1r on the structure of Red blood cell membrane?
Protein 4.1R is a component of red blood membrane and performs various task. The protein
forms a ternary complex with actin and spectrin. Experiments have shown that extracting the
protein in a mouse decreases the amount of actin, which then create a loss in the cytoskeleton
lattice structure. The hypothesis Pooja hypothesize is that since 4.1R protein is a multifunctional
component, it will have a very big impact on the red blood cell membrane. She would use a
western blot which is a technique used to identify and locate proteins to see the affection. Her
future project will be to test SDS protein. Dr. Sat gave a lot of recommendation to how she
should present her presentation next time. She did not explain her method clearly and did not
explain how she had to isolate the actin. What are the basic functions of protein 4.1r?
The next presentation was about questions in the distribution of Prime #. A
rational prime number is a number that is greater than 0 whose only proper divisors are itself, #1,
and multiples of itself. But how do you decide is a new # is prime? Is there some number p that
divides the prime number n? We’re going to use 299 as an example. Does 2 go into 299 evenly?
No. So we know that 299=pxd and that d is equal or larger than p. pxd has to be equal to or
larger than pxp or p square. 299 is equal to or larger than p square. That is what we know so far
for 299. If we place a radical on both side of the inequality, radical 299 has to be equal or greater
than p. If we replace 299 with the variable n we started with, it would be: radical n is equal or
greater than p. Radical 299 can be estimated to be 17 because 18 would be too high. Now, 17 is
equal or greater than p. As we continue, we could plug in numbers 17 or smaller to see if it can
go into 13. You will reach the conclusion that 13 goes into 299. If you have a limit, numbers will
be easier to guess and check. The Sieve of Eratosthenes is a list of 1-20 or more depending on
what you need. What you do is cross out number’s that are prime by finding all the multiples of
2,3,5,7 and cross them out. The remainders will be prime numbers. This would be useful if you
forget what prime numbers are but would be time consuming. Next Modular Arithmetic is
introduced. When 2 integers, lets say x and y are subtracted from each other, the 2 integers are
said to be congruent modulo (n): expressed as x=y (mod n). If we were to say that x=40 and y=10,
then it would be mod15 because 40-10=30 and 30 is the next multiple of 15, and so on. Getting a
negative value for x is more complicated. The next term is the Gaussian integer. A Gaussian
integer has real and imaginary numbers that are still integers. The form of Gaussian integers is
a+bi where a and b are both integers. For example 2+3i and 6-8i. A Gaussian integer is a
Gaussian Prime if it’s only proper divisors are + or -1, For example 5=(2+1)(2-1). It does not add
up to be 5, only 4+1. If a rational number cannot be written in that form, it is a Gaussian prime.
7 is also considered a Gaussian prime.
Next, we will be learning about Harlem’s ecology. The Harlem river and the
Hudson River are often populated by fishers who fishes as a hobby. The level of the toxin is high.
Toxin is a very dangerous and poisonous chemical produced by organisms. The Hudson River
starts from the Hoosic River and is about 315 miles long! The Harlem River is shortest, reaching 8
miles long. Harlem’s air is contaminated with 35% benzene that is a substance used to make
plastic, nylon, rubbers, etc. Diseases can arise in these airs that people breath. 3% of chromium
was found in the air and this chemical is used to make cars. Even though it is not a very high
percentage, it can increase if there are no awareness and can see harm people when it is mixed
with other poisonous chemicals in the air. There was a map of Harlem and the darker the regions
were, the more polluted it is. Frederick Douglas Academy High School showed up on the map too
and was on the darker places. This mean that the area the school is located on is very polluted.
How dangerous is it to go to school in such a polluted place? We have to raise awareness of this
big issue and tell everyone to take a part in this action. That means to recycle garbage, stop
fishing, stop throwing things into the water, stop smoking because the cigarettes contaminates
the air when it is burned, and much more. The presenters’ mentor has taken a sample of the
water at Hudson River and recorded the oxygen level, temp, pH, and sanitary. Their
recommendation for improvements would be to have urban farming, vegetation therapy,
alternative transportation, and have good water management. Future work will be to take more
measurements of water from the Hudson and see any difference. I think a really good future
research would be to go back there every month and take the same amount of water to see if
there are improvements.
The nutrition group presented their project on a healthy lifestyle. They first visited
the farmer’s market, which is a open air market that sells fresh produce from local farms. They
visited various farmers market in the city and compared the price, the variety, the freshness, and
the types of people around the neighborhood. While visiting the farmer’s market, the also
visited corner stores and grocery stores to see the difference again in price, variety, freshness,
and the types of people. They concentrated on obesity. Obesity is not the same as overweight
because obesity means an excessive amount of body fat. Overweight takes into account of your
muscles and your bones. A very skinny but muscular person can also be described as overweight
but not obese. You are obese if your BMI (body mass index) is 30 or greater. In order to calculate
your BMI, you take your weight in kg and divide it by your height x height. The goal for them was
to determine the price in different locations, how it affects the residents’ diets, and how obesity
is affected by prices. At each location, there would be someone recording the prices. Sweet
peppers at the farmer’s market are $1.50/lb but in C-town, the peppers are $3.99/lb. They did
not expect the supermarket’s price to be more than the farmer’s market. The reason for this is
that there are more services at the supermarket, more variety, have to pay for shipping costs,
and have yearlong fruits and vegetables. They not got a result for how the price will affect diets
and health but will continue to reach a conclusion this year. They will also conduct field surveys
and observe how location will affect nutrition habits. But if the people are not truthful, the
results will all screw up. What will do they if that really happen?
The final presentation is about Rett Syndrome. Rett Syndrome is caused by a
mutation in the MECP2 gene, which is located in the X chromosome. Dr.Andreas Rett, an Austrian
pediatrician first recognized this disorder and is named after him. Females have 2 X
chromosomes and only one have to be affected to get this disorder. MECP2 is a member of a
family of proteins all containing Methyl-CPG binding Domain. The first 6-18 months of being
affected seem normal to an observer. Development stops after 18 months and People with Rett
Syndrome have no talking skills, have repetitive hand movements, and their heads, hands, and
feet do not grow as fast as an average human being. One out of 10,000 to 23,000 females are
affected by the disorder and boys dies shortly after b/c they have only one X chromosome. There
are no treatments for the disorder but there are treatments for symptoms. The goal was to
understand the sequence of the patient’s gene. Step 1 would be to obtain messenger RNA
sequence of the MECP2 gene. And then Use program Blast to compare a healthy person’s gene
sequence with the patients. Thahmina Ali further research would be to find out MECP2 protein
functions and increase study.
(Lecture 5)
The first presentation of the day was a very interesting one. The research was to test
new therapies in Melanoma Mouse Models. The first thing is to understand what melanoma is.
Melanoma is a severe skin cancer caused by an unstoppable growth of cells called melanocytes. The
term to describe this growth is called pagetoid. Pagetoid spreading will invade the upper surface of
your skin called the dermal. IT can be hereditary or can be caused by ultraviolet light. The strong light
damages the DNA in cells and can cause mutation in the genes. If it weren’t treated, the cells would
keep dividing and create a tumor. The cell Survival in melanoma depends on how early the cancer is
detected. So why is it so important to be informed about this? This year, melanoma has increased
dramatically compared to other years. Around 80-85% of patients were cured by early detection.
Risk of melanoma in U.S. is pretty high because of our environment. People are constantly going to
the beach where the UV light is very strong during their free time, that’s why sunscreen or other
protection is very important. People with fair skin that burns easily, have freckles or moles, have
repeated sunburns, or have a history of melanoma should try to protect their skin more or should go
to the doctors right away if there are symptoms. Symptoms can be very severe sunburn that last a
long time or an abnormal size mole. To avoid the sun, wear sunscreen or wear a hat. The projects
procedure was to inject a human’s gene that has been affected with melanoma to a mouse genome.
The scientist would then observe the effects on the mouse. They would then come up with a solution
that would also be tested on the mouse first. The solution would later be revealed. Out of all the
possible animals, why do the researchers use mouse as a model? This is because we are
physiologically similar to humans and that technological has advanced so that scientist can analyze the
mices’ body function and effects easily. It is way cheaper than other animals. To explain the
procedure more clearly, we first inject a cloned gene into the nucleus of a fertilized egg. That
fertilized egg would then be implanted to the mouse. Then they would screen for mouse that are not
affected. The two would cross and after 4-6 months, a transgenic mouse is produced and that mouse
developed melanoma. The best way to cure this would be to work with the immune system and try to
think about how it would try to fight off the unwanted cells. If a human’s protein is injected to the
mouse, the mouse does not recognize it as its own and so it would not fight it off because the protein
was not produced in their body. This protein will help start vaccination in the mice. Each day for 8
days in a row, there would be 8 DNA injections. Another method is to inject genet plasmid DNA into
bacteria and then the bacteria would be injected inside a gold bullet. The bullet is shot into the body
of the mouse. The results came out to be a success. Injecting proteins created in an organism that
you are not would create immunization for the melanoma. The mouse’ symptoms has decreased a lot
but some of their healthy cells are destroyed. If we were to create a vaccine for humans, we would
inject mouse’ protein into the human body. It is not a guarantee that it will work but it is better to do
something more than nothing. This experiment would help us understand the immune system more
and to help save victims with melanoma. I wonder how the effect of the vaccine would be on other
animals when having melanoma. Would it be effective like how it was effective on the mouse?
Robotics is a very interesting topic this year. We had one presenter who conducted a survey
on robotics, we had another one who actually built a robot with their mentors, and now we have a
virtual one, call webots. Wi-Fi is a wireless technology that connects your network to another
network or to the Internet. The goal of their experiment was too understand the way webots work
and how to program it. Webots use Open Dynamics Engine to detect another body around them so
they would avoid collision. An E-puck is another mobile robot that contains IR sensors and can easily
detect walls. By understanding the structure of the E-puck, they were able to put some e-puck’s
characteristics into the webot. Their result was a robot that can analyze functions, have sensors to
avoid accidents, understand geometry, physics, and their environment. Their future project would
be to create a robotic vacuum cleaner. How cool is that!
Bintou Fisiru, a member of the forensic science group did her presentation on Fingerprinting.
The impression of a fingerprint on any surface is unique to everyone, will remain unchanged for your
whole life, but you could burn your finger deep to ruin the pattern of your fingerprint, and all
fingerprints are categorized into 3 categories; the arch, the loop, and the whorl. Some criminals
think that burning their fingers would allow them to erase their fingerprints and will not get caught.
But that is a very dumb idea because it hurts and the investigators will be more suspicious of you. At
the crime scenes, there are visual prints, plastic prints, and latent prints. A visual print is one that can
be seen with your naked eye, a plastic print would be like a fingerprint on clay, it could be described
as a fingerprint made out of something easily moldable, and last, a latent fingerprint is an invisible
fingerprint to the naked eye and is forms by oils in your fingers. Those prints are often visible when
dusted with powder or finding it with different color of lights at an angle. But when the criminal
investigator finds a fingerprint, how do they match it with the suspect’s? They first take the suspect’s
fingerprint, identify the pattern, identify different characteristics and seek unique lines. If the
patterns are the same as the one found in the crime scene, we can conclude the suspect is guilty.
The next presentation was about RNA analysis to study dry eye syndrome. Our eyes need a
certain layer of tears to moisture our eyeballs, but for patients having this syndrome, there is
decreased tear production. The decrease will create an unbalance in the tear film and will increase
dry spots on the cornea. Symptoms may include irritation, inflammation, or feel of something in the
eye. The cause of the syndrome can include aging and environment. Treatments can be found over
the counter like eye drops that help increase tear. The purpose was to analyze the expression of
inflammation related to cykotine. The term cytokine in easy English expresses proteins, peptides,
and glycoprotein. What we can get out of this experiment is knowledge of this syndrome, early
prevention, a closer study of blindness, and solutions. I personally have never heard of this
syndrome if it wasn’t for this presentation. So I learned a whole new disorder and would able to be
diagnosed early if I get any signs of it.
A healthy baby has enzymes called HexA that clear out fatty proteins and unwanted material.
Thus they begin to develop hearing, sensing, talking, seeing, etc. But for people with Tay-Sachs
disease, they do not grow normally because they are borne with the absence of this enzyme. When
the fatty proteins build up, it would damage the eyes, ear, brain, etc. Tay-Sachs is an inherited
disease. Only one of the parents have to be a carrier of HEXA gene. Certain ethnic groups have a
higher chance of getting a affected baby so screening before birth is very important. Some people
carry the genetic disorder but the condition is not so serious. To get diagnosed of maybe having an
affected infant, have a blood test, have a specialist pair up chromosomes and analyze, screenings,
and doctors will ask personal questions about you. There are no treatments for this disease. This is a
very deadly disease and infants who are affected severely cannot live older than 4 years.
“Cancer is not one disease to treat but a multitude of diseases in one packet” is a very
sophisticated quote from Dr.Sumanta Goswami. As the population is aging there is a big increase
number of incidence of cancer. And due to new technologies, patients who are diagnosed early have
a big chance of surviving. The two main obstacles for treating breast cancer is metastasis disease,
which means that the infection spreads from one organ to the other. The second obstacle is drug
resistance. For other cancers, there are effective drugs that kill some of the cancer cells. But for
breast cancer, it is a lot harder. What the breast cancer cell do is to get into the blood vessels and
invade, survive, and move out to form colonies. The cells are held very tightly next to each other so
invading them would be like fighting a world power. So how are those cells caught in the act of
invasion when they’re so tightly together? One possible idea is that the cells release a protein call
metalloproteinase that is in charge of the connections and can command them to spread out or
come together. Another pretty obvious one would be that the cell is able to understand when is the
good time to be together and out. If they were beginning to invade more, they would push
themselves out of the group. In order to use an animal model, we would take some samples of the
cancer cell, inject it to the animal and after 3 weeks, we would see what it has invaded. A chemo taxi
is a phenomenon that allows organism like bacteria to get attracted to a chemical or setting. It is
applied on a needle that is then injecting on the animal. Scientist would then analyze the cell that
has gone on the needle and compare it with the human. We then stain the nucleus with
bromodeoxyuridine, and noticed that the invasion cells shut down themselves. The lack of
proliferation suggests that treatments that target growth pathways might not be very effective at
killing invasive tumor cells. Future hopes would be to have biomarkers for early detection. Another
hope could be to create a pathway directed drug that can kill these chemo’ and radio resistant cells.
The next presentation was from a professor at NYU School Of Dentistry. He didn’t give a very
formal speech but was open to a lot of the questions the audience had and was very useful. He
taught use to brush after every meal but not right after drinks with acid because it would hurt your
enamel. After one hour of every meal, the food stuck on your teeth becomes bacteria, and you don’t
wan that. He told us many teeth whitening strategies like bleaching and kept us updated on the new
laser bleaching. He was very laid but and gave us a lot of good tips on how to keep our teeth healthy.
To wrap up today’s lecture, we had Fatih presenting “Near-Field Thermal Radiative Transfer
between spherical objects.” The purpose of this is to investigate near-field thermal radiative heat
transfer between closely spaced spherical objects. The reason to use spherical object is that it is
reasonable to analyze because there is always a same radius. But the bad thing is that it is
experimentally very challenging. It was hard to understand the rest of his presentation because of
the lack of steps he explained for his experiment.
Finally we had our first check and the lecture was over…
(Lecture 6)
Dr. Steve Greenbaum, Ph.D. presented his study on efficient Energy technologies for
Earth and other planets. In order for NASA to do space exploration, power and energy is
required in the robot to allow it to work. These robots have to be able to work in low
temperatures, have to have a radiation tolerance, and a long life. The goals were to determine
Mars habit ability; Geology of Martian rocks, and analyzes the samples. The U.S. has a policy for
setting planetary missions. One key one is to use one of Earth's moons as far away from Earth
as possible to use as a test bed. If this small test mission is successful, there will be a big chance
of accomplishment in other harsh environments. Lithium-ion batteries are the primary power
source to electronics today. But why is it called Lithium-ion battery. As the battery charges and
discharges, Lithium-ion slides in and out from anode to the cathode. The reason producers use
lithium batteries instead of conventional batteries is because Lithium has higher energy density,
when disposed will cause little harm, cell temperature can be monitored, etc. Lithium batteries
can be useful in medical devices like a pacemaker, defibrillator, and Pain controls. They can also
act like micro bots in medicine like drillers, Peepers, and Stingers. Drillers can drive right
through tumors and Stringers inject drugs into the targeted place of the tumor. Safety of
Battery Pack is a paramount concern and can be very dangerous. There was an incident when a
Sony computer lit up during a meeting because the battery was too hot. So the maintenance of
the batteries is very important. Airports do not allow computers to be charged because the
battery might be so heated up that it will cause an explosion. Future problems to solve are to
lower the temperature of electrolytes and create cheap and nontoxic material for the lithiumbattery. Getting oil and producing power and energy produces many dangerous and harmful
chemicals in the air. A better alternative would be to install solar panels. The problem is that
there has to be a steady wind and transporting them to where it is necessary will be time
consuming. We can conclude that new power generation and energy storage technologies are
critical to maintaining our standard of living. We should invest more in Science! and build a
better environment. Why can’t we install the solar panels in a windier environment? And
aren’t solar panels taking the sun’s energy and not the wind?
Jordan Liz and Donte Bland gave an information session on Breast cancer. Breast
cancer is a cancer caused by malignant tumor is a group of tumor cells that invades tissues and
spreads. It first starts out in the cells and spreads to the breast. Symptoms may include a lump
in the breast that feels significantly different than normal, change in size or shape, or some
liquids flowing out from the nipple. Breast cancer most likely affect women in their 50s or above
but people get checkups monthly or yearly once they reach 40. It affects women most but men
can have it too. It is one of the deadliest cancers in America after lung cancer. One in every eight
women would be affected. Genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 greatly increase the risk of Breast cancer. If
one of your family members is affected by breast cancer, you should do more checkups.
Personal factors like how old you had your period or the age you had your first baby have large
impacts in the chance of getting breast cancer. It is a very scaring cancer and can only be treated
if it is diagnosed early. Bioinformatics is a field of science that combines elements of biology,
computer science, and information technology into one discipline. They used BLAST that stands
for Basic Local Alignment Search Tool, which finds the similarity and difference of two gene
sequences. They sequenced the genes of horses, chimpanzees, and other animals. They would
then compare the sequence of the breast cancer patient to the gene sequence of these animals.
Studying the sequence can lead to new discovery of the cause of their mutation and hopefully
find a mean to reverse the happening to breast cancer. The conclusion is this: Breast cancer is
accenting tens of thousands of Americans each year and there are no definite treatments but
scientist is working very hard to find new alternatives to cure it. We even have the National
Breast Cancer Foundation that gives people support and give people courage to fight together
and find a cure. Tons of women show up every year for the breast cancer walk. This shows that
Americans are strong and will never stop trying to find a cure.
The next presentation was called the Metro Baby Project. The goal of this project
is to understand families, schools, peers, work, and the media on development of young children
and to observe views and practices done by black parents to take care of the baby from the first
day. The metro baby project started in 2004 and there are currently 324 families getting involved
in the project. For the first month of the baby’s birth, the students made telephone contacts to
samples they chose. They would interview the parents and ask them questions like “What is your
ideal way to take nurture your child? Or are you having any problems with finances? This would
continue for 6 months and later on when the child turns 1 year old, the group would make home
visits. There are no overviews for the home visits yet because they don’t have enough time.
They are also asked their daily routines and this is recorded into a daily routine diary. The chart
comes in 7 rows and 5 columns where the time the action took place goes on the row and the
question on the column. Each daily routine diary is then coded and each event is going to be
categorized as episodes like Breast-feeding, Diaper change, Hand games, etc. Each episode are
put into a code sheet where they can record the episode, time, and who the caregiver was. They
are currently using SSPS, which stands for Statistical Package for the Social Science. It is
computer software that analyze data from focused time distribution and condense infos into
statistics and trends. Their future work would be to complete their SPSS entry and identify
trends in the result they get like see the differences between black parents parenting method
compare to white, time distributed to each activities, and child communication. They will also
move on to the 6-month phone interview in the future. How does different parenting method
affect the child’s growth and education? This would probably take about 3 years because the
children will be able to talk or maybe write at age 3. If they understand the influence of the
family to the development of the child, they will see how some method might not be beneficial
and will try to change it so that child or other children will have a better growth.
“Arson Analysis in Forensic Science” was next and was presented by Kendra
Kokofu, Andrew Madouty, and Shanice Grant. The word arson is a noun meaning an act
deliberately setting fire on any structure or building. So an arson fire is a fire that is purposely
put on by someone maybe because of hatred or others. In the year 1996, arsonist has ruined
around 2 million buildings and has taken the lives away of many Americans. Most of arsonists
get always with their crime and only 16% of all the Arson case led to arrests. The National Fire
Protection Association found that 20%-25% of Arson cases are drug related, meaning the
arsonists are drunk when they committed the crime. Although Arson cases have decreased
comparing to the statistics in 1998-2005, the number is still very high. Starting a fire requires
three things, Oxygen, Heat, and a fuel source. Some of the reasons that arsonists set fire is
because they might want to get revenge from someone, are drunk, and some very stupid ones
set fire in order to get insurance money. Accelerants can help investigators figure out if the fire
was on purpose. Accelerants are chemical fuels that cause fire to spread faster, make it harder
to stop, and to burn hotter. It can also be used as evidence. First the firefighters have to
extinguish the fire, then the arson investigators come if the firefighters think that the fire started
on purpose. The investigators would then find accelerants. Chemists are also involved in cases.
They take samples of ground, clothes, or other items that may have helped cause the fire or have
soaked up the chemicals in the fire. The samples are brought back to the lab where further
investigations are done. The way the things are set during the scene can let investigators
conclude if it was intentional. For example, if the things in the building were placed neatly, the
fire is on purpose or if the windows are all open and the fire spreads in a neat line or started in
two or more different places. The conclusion is that forensic science is not only lab work and
blood, but there is a lot more to it. How does an accidental fire be categorized? I don’t really
understand the categories of an accidental fire.
P.E.A.R.L.S stands for Parent Enhancing Academic Readiness. This project focuses
on the cultural differences in infant or children families because different culture has different
ways in raising their children. Before it was usually whites and middle class who were
interviewed. The presenters thought that in order for the result to be more accurate, they would
focus on other races or classes like Black parents. The methodology is to first get a few samples
or 2-4 black families, have interviews with the parents, and then build relationship with Head
Start centers to observe the child’s growth. Currently, the group found that parents want their
children to have a better future than them because during their period, there were not as many
opportunities for them as there are for their children. Answers during interviews might not
always be truthful and results might not be relevant to parents. The discussion is to investigate
the relationship between the black parenting techniques and school readiness in pre-school
children. They found that parenting in black communities differs from the middle class white
parenting methods because of cultural differences, traditions, and values. Their future project
would be to assist the low income African Americans into better or improving their parenting
methods.
The final presentation is on another topic of forensic science: Blood Analysis and
Blood Spatter at a Crime Scene. Blood is made up of a mixture of cells, enzymes, proteins, and
inorganic substances. For every antigen there is a specific antibody that will react with the
antigen to form clumps known as angulations. The importance of blood is that it contains the
bodies DNA and have genes that will allow sequencing. There are many ways to test if the red
liquid is blood. One of the methods is called The Takayama Test. Sample of blood is placed
under a super strong microscope. If there is something like a crystal appearing, it is blood. Blood
spatters help investigators see the movement of the injured one. If there is a big puddle of
blood, the victim is thought to be severely injured on the spot. If there are drops everywhere,
the victim might have a small opening in the body and has moved place to place. If the blood is
dropped 90 degrees, the blood drop is round. If the angle is less than 90 degrees, the drop is
going to be longer. But what if the drop is more than 90 degrees?
(Lecture 7)
Jonathan and Belinda brought the first presentation of the day and their topic was on Asthma.
Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the lungs and narrows the airway when you
breathe. Asthma can cause wheezing, coughing, and tight chest. People with asthma have to
take medication become doing any physical exercises because they would have very hard time
breathing. The death rate of asthma is unknown but is not one of the deadly disorders in
America. Many medications are coming out of the market and can really improve the
conditions. The airway carries air in and out of the lungs, but for people with asthma, the airway
becomes inflamed and it makes the airways swollen and sensitive. The airway would become
tighten and less air would be able to flow through in a certain amount of time. The cells would
make more mucus than normal and can clog up the pathway. Asthma starts first during
childhood and cannot be fully treated. There are different stages of asthma, mild and severe. In
the United States, 22 million people are known to have it and out of the 22, about 6million of
them are children. The cause of asthma is not known but researchers believe it has to do
something with genes or environmental factors. The presenters introduced case in which a man
has asthma and owns a dog and a cat. His symptoms are frequent and severe, so when he went
to the doctor, who was the presenters’ mentor, she told him that he was allergic to fur and had
to get rid of them. He didn’t want to do so because he loved them both very much. He finally
did give up his fur animals and replaced them with a snake. His symptoms had improved a lot
and whenever he came for a checkup, he would bring his snake name pinky because pinky
relieves his depression. The snake has gotten very large and the doctor told him that he could
just bring pictures of pinky each visit because pinky was getting scarier and scarier. They
concluded that pets could help relieve a person’s depression. Getting early awareness of asthma
is important because if you don’t know that you have it but sometimes symptoms show up, it can
be dangerous if you have no medication. Some times people die because they can’t breathe.
Some people who have asthma do not feel they have it at all. Why is that?
The next presentation was titled “The use of cell cultures to study the Central
Nervous System.” Cell structures are individual cells that are plated onto cover slips or Petri
dishes where they are in controlled condition needed for experimental use. The cell lines are
deprived form tumor and growth. The main organs of the nervous system are the brain and the
spinal cord. The species for experiment are fruit flies and rat. Flies have shorter life, complete
genome sequence, less tissues and cells are harder to isolate, and are easy to store in large
groups. The U.S. has strict rules for using mammals as a test. There are two types of fruit flies,
Wild type and Mutant flies. They did an experiment on how fast they climb at a certain distance
and got the result that mutant flies are slower. They extracted the brain of the fly during their 3 rd
larva phase and fed sugar to the brain cell, create membrane, etc. Drug WIN55 and 212-2drug
will better help the brain neuron survive. Then they extracted the spinal cord of the rat, broke
the tissue, and got cell, got rid of dead cell, and then plated cells on ploy-lysine cover slips. The
criteria of good perfusion are that the liver must turn grey in rats and lungs swell up and turn
white and have small red spots. What exactly did the researchers get as a conclusion? Do
different types of cell structure affect different functions of the Central Nervous System?
Nutrition in Niagara is the next and is well different from the rest of the
presentations. The goal was to observe the ways people live there, observe farms, stores, and
compared it t the city. There were a lot more room in Niagara than in the city. There are many
casinos in the area and the people are near upper class. The population has grown by 2.2%,
English and Italian are the main language, the race is predominately white, and the populations
are mainly catholic. The foods there are well taken care of, prices are cheaper, foods are put in
baskets, and is from local farms so it is always fresh and healthy. The researcher compared
peaches from the city and Niagara and rated it by letters, Niagara Falls had peaches for $2.50/lb
and was rated A+ for quality, peaches in Union sq. sold it for $3.00/lb and was rated A-, and
Staten Island sold it for $3.50/lb while the quality is rated B+. The reason why Staten Island sell
products so expensive than other places in the city and in Niagara is because the imported their
products some where out of Staten island and just transported the product to local supermarkets
in Staten island takes a lot of time. He reached the conclusion that prices and textures vary a lot,
fruits and vegetables are better preserved in Niagara, and their presentation is a lot better. Why
is there such a big different? Maybe because residents in NYC are too busy and the place is too
crowded? If the audiences are interested in studying more about nutrition, they can continue
their study as a major in college and so on so work in nutritional projects.
Briani George presented her work on bioinformatics. Bioinformatics is the field o
science in which many other fields like biology, technology, and computer science come together
to access information about molecular biology. She did research on a protein called PAH protein
and was able to gather information by using databases. One of those databases is called the PDB
database that is used internationally for scientist. They have 3D structures of proteins, nucleic
acids, and large molecules. The second database she used was the NCBI database, which is a
national database for molecular biology. NCBI allows people to search up examples of Pub med,
entrez, and nucleotide database. Scientist were testing the affects of tetrahydrobiopetrin on the
PAH in an attempt to regulate the L-phe level. They tested 15 mutants and the only one that
crystallized was the A3a3t. Researchers found that the molecular mechanisms for BH4 increases
the amount of active enzymes as well as PAH activity. Overall, I thought that this was the most
confusing and complicated presentation today, and I didn’t quite understand it.
The last presentation came from Nixon on his work on “Creating awareness about
HIV-AIDS and tuberoses. South Africa is 1/47 country in the African continent. Kwazulu-Natal is
the epicenter of aids. Pietermaritzburg is the capital and is where edendale hospital is located.
His mission with iTeach is to provide a comprehensive intervention to support and improve
delivery of HIV and TB care. They provide integrated HIV-TB education of Training, assist with
improvement of healthcare system, implement community awareness and mobilization camping,
and support the medicine house staff training program. Training module 1 would help patients
be keeping them aware and by educating them on nutrition and eating for a healthy future.
Module 2 would educate people about immune system, HIV/AIDs, and TB & HIV infection.
Module 3 would provide people with information on who needs ARVS, adherence taking your
ARVS, what is drug-resistance, and ARV drug side effects. Everyone should be aware of what’s
going on outside of the world and think about how lucky we are.
Lecture 8
Group3 of the Nutrition Group concentrated on Nutrition and Healthy Living 2009:
Socioeconomics. The nutrition project aims to find the key factor that causes many people to get
diseases like obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. They observed the foods available in
local markets, observe the types of neighborhoods those markets were in, and maybe the types
of people that shop there. This would help them figure out what socioeconomic factors in such
diseases. Socioeconomics is the study of the relationship between economics and social
behaviors. They predicted that residents in low-income neighborhoods would be at a greater risk
of developing the disease because there are very little healthy food stores and fitness gyms in
those areas. They first visited many of the farmers market in the city and while going to each
neighborhood, they also visited corner stores and supermarkets to compare quality, price,
freshness, and they took notes on the environment in which those stores were in. In addition to
finding a cause for diseases, they learned how to choose products based on food labels and
stores. They are more conscience of what they are going to buy. What they concluded at the
end of the research proved that their hypothesis was correct. Manhattan is one of the most
wealthiest boroughs and therefore, many of Manhattan’s residents are fit compared to other
boroughs. In conclusion, the environment in which people live can have a big impact in a healthy
lifestyle. This is important because the government need to support more of the borough that
are in need, including constructing new fitness gyms and whole food or farmers market in low
income neighborhoods. Is this true to all low-income communities? I know that in 125th, the
residents are low income but the farmers market their sell their products cheaply so the
residents could afford it. Are there any other ways that low-income residents can eat healthy?
A UNICEFF (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund)
representative came to talk to the students about the mission of UNICEF and their successes.
UNICEF is a United Nation plan to fund for children in poverty. UNICEF aids children from all
around the world by assisting in food supply, water supply, nutrition, health services, and many
more. If was first created in 1946 to protect the rights of children and prevent unfair labor
treatments. Now it continues to do so by protecting the children their rights and give support to
them. They do a lot of fundraising and most of the money comes from the government.
Micro bubbles are small air bubbles that are 0.00001m big. They can hold oxygen,
drugs, and other medical needs. The purpose of the bubbles is to deliver chemicals to specific
areas that target a certain area and then popped by ultrasound. The ultrasound is not harmful
because it is the same ultrasound used in maternal checkups. The oxygen bubbles keep patients
with lung failure alive because it can deliver air to the lungs when needed. The bubbles are
injected right into the blood and the oxygen is acquired by the red blood cells and hemoglobin.
The chemistry components of the bubbles are oxygen, lipid, and water. The research was to
create a stable bubble by trying different methods like rotating or refrigeration. Conclusion 1
proved that micro-bubbles in refrigeration are more stable. The presenters hypothesized that
rotation will prevent bubble coalescence, but they were wrong. It made individual bubbles grow
bigger created more instability. In the future, they will create different lipid formulas. Why did
they choose rotation instead of maybe shaking or putting it in a heated room? If they find a way
to make the bubbles more stable, the bubbles will help save more lives.
Another presentation was about computational machine Learning Computer Lab
Workshop. Computers are the new way of life instead of books, instead of looking at isolated
characteristics of a piece of equipment as indicators of potential for failures. Con-Ed is the
largest investor-owned energy companies. Remote Desktop refers to software or an OS feature
allowing graphical applications to be run remotely on a server while being displayed locally.
Asset selection also produces a view in Google Earth. Their presentation goes on explaining
different software’s in the technological world of computers. New knowledge in technologies
might help you with tasks later on in the future.
The next presentation was on a study of Pancreatic Neuroendocine Tumors in
Mice. MEN1 is an auto somal dominant disorder caused by mutations in the MEN1 tumor
suppresser gene. This disorder is also known as Wermer’s Syndrome. The gene is located in
chromosome 11 and the disorder happens because of an over activity and enlargement of
endocrine glands. Why is the research interesting? In the past, mice are completely deficient of
MEN1 in both endocrine and exocrine pancreas tumors. The objective is to use knock out mice
to define the components of the tumor. The methods are to isolate gene from mice pancreas,
slice a piece of mice sample, stain the wax slides, check for proliferation, etc. The research is still
in progress. Why did they not choose other animals to do a research so they could compare the
tumors in both animals?
Devika Briglall presented the next slide on the effects of Genotoxic Stress on Germ
and somatic testicular cells. She will focuses on the regulation of sperm cells in mice, observe
male in fertility, and the stress response in the sperm cells. Techniques she would use to conduct
the research include Cell Culture, Western Blotting, and Flow Cytometry. Spermatogenesis is a
noun referring to the production of sperms. Different types of stress can affect germ cells during
their development. Her goal was to determine which cells is the primary target of genotoxic
stress in the testis. Her conclusion: spermatogonia are the primary target of the genotoxic stress
in the testis. In summary, tunnel assay, Flow cytometry, and Apoptotic assay was explained. I
would like to ask her how she reached her conclusion and how it this important to the human
being?
Two New York Times Scholar gave a speech and presentation on their work as a
scholar. New York Times is the largest metropolitan newspaper in the U.S. and is founded in
1851. New York Times Scholarship consists of a scholarship, employment in one of the
headquarters, academic support, and provides seminars about racial and financial diversity. They
accomplished many task on their jobs. They are putting a database together to compete with
wikipedia online, update books in the library because it lacks the feature of a real library, shadow
researchers so they will became experienced, they say in on meetings with professional
reporters, and create health quizzes that school uses for health class. One of the girls is started
on one of her patient voices, which is a short video about the lives of patients with serious
disorders. But unfortunately, she didn’t get a chance to finish it. Because of the economic crisis,
even New York Times is suffering and they are limiting the number of people who get accepted.
The girls told us that there is a chance New York Times will only give out scholarships from CUNY
students and they will only select a total of less than half of the people that was selected last
year. Becoming a New York Times scholar has taught them a lot about journalism and a lot about
becoming the best student.